India in South Africa, December 2023

[prasen9]

If Shardul needs to make any impact he should come to bat at 3/4 and make contributions rather useless 20/30s at 7.

That is nonsense. Kapil Dev never batted at 3/4. He was very useful. Shardul just needs to bat better at #7. 20s and 30s are not useless at #7 but are very valuable instead of the 0s and 5s our bowlers contribute. Shardul needs to both bat better and bowl better.

Irfan Pathan bowled and batted at about 32 runs/wicket. That was very valuable. Many matches can be won if your #7 puts up a solid stand with a 30 odd run. That prevents total collapse of the tail. We need someone who can emulate Irfan.

Shardul cannot even bat at a 20 runs/innings and that is the problem. He needs to bat better in the tail. No need for nonsensical #3/4 experience. He needs to bat at a solid #6, #7 in the domestics so that he is a good #7-8 types in tests.

[Kumar]

Our biggest challenge is that our next gen players are clearly lacking. We don’t have program to send them on A tour to England, NZ and verifying if they are really good. Except for IPL, these players for test squad barely have a path way.

Ishan may have been smart to opt out of this tour conveniently. My belief in Jaiswal is not based on his current ability, but the fact that after a failed First IPL season he came back strong by working hard. I am hoping he does that again in the next match. Gill is more bothersome as he is clearly not making any improvements to address his weakness.

Rohit is clearly getting a pass. I have a feeling that Rohit is not far off from retiring from test match

[prasen9]

We need to get Easwaran in the team in place of Gill. Gill is useless when the ball moves.

Avesh Khan is in the side. So, will it be Avesh, PK, or Mukesh? Unless Shardul can show in the nets that he can bowl line and length and bat well, I'd pick Jadeja to replace Shardul straight up.

[Kumar]

Saurabh hasn't been ok he is being brilliant picking 8 wickets for India A in 3 matches so far he got in South Africa in 4 dayers but he can't make two legends Ashwin & Jadeja sit in the bench. Ashwin has been 3rd class in South Africa. This is straight 5th back to back test loss in SENA and still lots of excuses are existing to save the players.

Ashwin has been dropped way too frequently. So I am not sure if we are following the same team? If Jadeja was fit, Ashwin would have been dropped for this Match . Ashwin played just one match in the WC .

Blaming our spinner for the failure of top order batsman and pace bowlers is ludicrous. U are comparing apples and oranges when u compare Saurabh performance in A tour matches which were probably more akin to Indian conditions .

The biggest problem is that Dravid was doing good things when he was coaching juniors and is more of a teacher. Being a coach of the senior team is a different ball game and he is failing it big time. Now our u19 juniors appear to be bad as well. We are going to go thru this lean phase unless someone comes up magically( don’t believe that we will have any kind of structure for that to happen)

[Atithee]

As long as IPL exists, Indian cricket in other forms will spiral into ludicrous lows. There is no need for any other analysis.

[prasen9]

Pretty much. There has been no planning for the test team. The stupid selectors seem to think that playing a player in 1 match is enough for them to find out how good or bad he is. There is no explanation for so many A-team players chosen without rhyme or reason. It almost seems that the selectors have no clue and are blindly throwing a bunch of darts.

[Kumar]

n Centurion, India's three experienced bowlers - Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and R Ashwin - bowled 69.4 overs for 201 runs and seven wickets. With conditions getting easier for batting than on day one, 201 for 7 is a decent response to being bowled out for 245. However, the two less-experienced bowlers - Shardul Thakur in his 11th Test, and Prasidh Krishna on debut - went for 194 for 2 in 39 overs, which is where the Test was lost no matter how much India's batters are criticised for their second-innings collapse.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/indi ... atform=amp

Just shows you how badly Shardul and Pk bowled. They bowled 30 overs less, but just gave away 10 less runs. The spinner cannot be effective if our pace bowlers are bad in this pitch.

Our team is at cross roads .. and this BCCI regime appears to be extremely short sighted and very likely that it may take a long time for us to come out of this slump.

[Atithee]

Getting a pass for Indian domestic system for Indian team players is such an abomination. When was the last time Rohit and Virat played a domestic four day match? No place else is this nonsense abetted and accepted by the board.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

If Shardul needs to make any impact he should come to bat at 3/4 and make contributions rather useless 20/30s at 7.

That is nonsense. Kapil Dev never batted at 3/4. He was very useful. Shardul just needs to bat better at #7. 20s and 30s are not useless at #7 but are very valuable instead of the 0s and 5s our bowlers contribute. Shardul needs to both bat better and bowl better.

Kapil Dev & Shardul too much nonsense in that. One generation talent had differant skill set compared to a mediocre. Kapil Dev had solid bowling ability that could make any captain to pick in Playing XI even in Indian tracks. Shadul's bowling looks unless batters makes mistake he can't get any of them out. At 7 neither he can take the team out from worst position or can pick a 5 for when partnership happens. Kapil's batting skill was differant, he had the ability to handle swing in SENA and spin in India, it was not throwing bat at every ball like Shardul. Shardul is nothing but a high class tailander who can perform in once in a blue moon. His selection will affect the team, its better to pick a proper batter or bowler then an average allrounder. If he wants to improve his skills he needs to follow Jadeja's way who had 3 triple ton batting at 4 for Saurashtra, certainly his batting skills will improve in facing new balls.

Irfan Pathan bowled and batted at about 32 runs/wicket. That was very valuable. Many matches can be won if your #7 puts up a solid stand with a 30 odd run. That prevents total collapse of the tail. We need someone who can emulate Irfan.

Again Irfan was brilliant with the bowl he could cover his batting failure with the bowl, was a treat to watch with new ball in red ball cricket. Shardul can't replicate even 1% of it.

Shardul cannot even bat at a 20 runs/innings and that is the problem. He needs to bat better in the tail. No need for nonsensical #3/4 experience. He needs to bat at a solid #6, #7 in the domestics so that he is a good #7-8 types in tests.

He needed interest like unknown Pandya, that could make skipper like Rohit promote at n.o 3/4 or open the bowling, ball as 2nd change bowler, where MI had team filled up with legends. Only he can give value to the team now is by warming in the bench, last 1 year he hasn't been such a great performer, time to pick new allrounders like Harshit Rana or Raj Bawa who are performing in domestic

[Atithee]

Performing in Indian domestics is a joke. Serious players don’t participate so the performances are so watered down. And now there are so many minnow teams, that it’s a joke. The weakest go join these state teams. No point using domestics to evaluate players. India red, green etc. is possibly a better way but it’s one and done type and even that has been abandoned. Playing an India A and India team in the same country at the same time is weird too. We should be playing India A in the next tour host country. That’ll be useful more than concurrent arrangement happening now.

There are so many simple things just like ssp has been advocating for Indian hockey, but we perhaps have the worst management in all sports. Just read what Michael Vaughn said about Indian cricket today. He likes to needle us, but he’s so right in this instance.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Indian domestic system is following equility for all. Since large n.o of teams are playing 4 dayers, team should be divided into two categories. Elite group teams should'nt get chance to bash Plate group teams unless relegation system begins. Development required in tracks. Each round should be played in pure green & pure spinning tracks. To do well in SENA, BCCI needs to bring in drop in pitches, so that players learn how to handle chest high & chin music deliveries. India A system has been slowed post covid, only 5 tours happened since 2020, 2 SA tour, one Bangladesh tour ( which was'nt required), Sri Lanka & NZ at home. When Dravid took over chairman of NCA, India A system was highly active, tours of Aus, NZ, WI, England & SA happened regularly, now BCCI is least interest to make regular tours

[Mukherjee Babu]

Ishant, Bhuvi, Shami, Bumrah, Umesh and later Siraj....... 5 lethal pacers of test format developed by Kohli- Shastri - Bharat Arun

More then 2 years gone not a single new test format bowler developed by Rohit-Dravid-Mambhrey.

[Kumar]

Indian domestic system is following equility for all. Since large n.o of teams are playing 4 dayers, team should be divided into two categories. Elite group teams should'nt get chance to bash Plate group teams unless relegation system begins. Development required in tracks. Each round should be played in pure green & pure spinning tracks. To do well in SENA, BCCI needs to bring in drop in pitches, so that players learn how to handle chest high & chin music deliveries. India A system has been slowed post covid, only 5 tours happened since 2020, 2 SA tour, one Bangladesh tour ( which was'nt required), Sri Lanka & NZ at home. When Dravid took over chairman of NCA, India A system was highly active, tours of Aus, NZ, WI, England & SA happened regularly, now BCCI is least interest to make regular tours

I agree with your post in its entirety. …pitch may be the most difficult to accomplish, but not sure why we haVe 24+ elite teams. we lost twice by making Dravid head coach. Our pipeline appears to have dried up and our senior team seems clueless.

[prasen9]

At 7 neither he can take the team out from worst position or can pick a 5 for when partnership happens.

The point in choosing Kapil was to show that you don't need to bat at #3 or #4 to be a good allrounder. Not to say Kapil was the same as Thakur. Thakur just needs to bat and bowl better and not some nonsense like bat at #3 or #4 in the domestics. Shardul has won us matches batting at #7 or #8. Denying that is denying reality.

Shardul is nothing but a high class tailander who can perform in once in a blue moon.

He gives us 20 runs odd and that is valuable. We cannot play 4 #11s.

If he wants to improve his skills he needs to follow Jadeja's way who had 3 triple ton batting at 4 for Saurashtra, certainly his batting skills will improve in facing new balls.

Complete nonsense. He should rather follow Kapil, Jansen, Hadlee, Irfan's way. He is not a batsman and can never be a Jadeja.

Again Irfan was brilliant with the bowl he could cover his batting failure with the bowl, was a treat to watch with new ball in red ball cricket. Shardul can't replicate even 1% of it.

Shardul has bowled better than Irfan in tests but batted much worse. He needs to improve his batting. And, line and length.

time to pick new allrounders like Harshit Rana or Raj Bawa who are performing in domestic

Absolutely.

[prasen9]

Ishant, Bhuvi, Shami, Bumrah, Umesh and later Siraj....... 5 lethal pacers of test format developed by Kohli- Shastri - Bharat Arun

More then 2 years gone not a single new test format bowler developed by Rohit-Dravid-Mambhrey.

Dravid is good at telling people like Ishant and Saha to leave. But, is clueless and has no plans to develop the next generation. So, here we are. He is the #1 idiot.